About Chaim Oron

The newly-elected Meretz party Chairman, MK Chaim Oron, whose nickname is "Jumas", was born in 1940 in Ramat Gan. As a teenager, Oron was deeply involved with the socialist-Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and the kibbutz movement. At age 18, he helped build Kibbutz Lahav in the Negev, where he still lives with his wife and four children. In 1968, at age 28, Oron became the national secretary of the Kibbutz Artzi kibbutz federation, serving in that position until 1971. He later served a second term as national secretary between 1984-88. In 1994-95, Oron was the treasurer of the Histadrut, Israel's federation of trade unions.

 

Oron was first elected to Knesset in 1988 with the Mapam party, one of the three parties that later formed Meretz. Since 1992, he has served as a Meretz MK. He has been active on the Finance, State Control, Ethics, House and Environment Committees, and from 1999 to 2000 was Israel's Minister of Agriculture in Ehud Barak's government. He has been a member of Knesset caucuses advocating for Bedouin rights, Jewish-Arab co-existence, public health, the environment, the rights of disabled persons, and support for higher education.

 

Oron was one of the founders of the Peace Now movement. In 2003, he was one of the drafters and signatories of the Geneva Initiative, and a driving force behind its achievement. More recently, Oron has reportedly been Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's liaison to jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.